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108 Mohan
108 Mohan
108 Mohan
Abstract
Recent advances in various aspects of FSS and applications along with modelling and
analysis of FSS are documented in [2, 3]. The most common analysis is the unit cell
based approach using the Floquet modes, well suited for infinite planar arrays. However,
arbitrarily curved or finite surfaces present greater problems because of the numerical
complexities and the intricacies in modeling 3-D structures. In a curved array, it becomes
necessary to perform the computations for groups of elements or individual elements
conformed to the profile of the full 3-D structure. A quasi-static approach using a finite
current model has previously been successfully employed in [4] and also a Pocklington
equation technique in [5].
The Frequency Selective Surfaces (FSS) are periodic structures in a one or two
dimensional array and as the name suggests, perform frequency filtering. Thus,
depending on their physical construction, material and the element geometry, they can be
divided into band-pass and band-stop filters.
In 1919 Marconi first patented periodic structures [6], but work on FSS started with
earnest in the early 60s [7] and concentrated on the use of FSS in Cassegainian
subreflectors in parabolic dish antennas. Today FSS are employed in radomes (terrestrial
and airborne), missiles and electromagnetic shielding applications.
The analysis of FSS started with mode matching techniques which were first applied in
waveguide problems. The mode matching method led to the approximate method of
equivalent circuit analysis which gave a lot of insight into the behaviour of FSS since it
was partly based on the transmission line principles. The modelling capability however
was limited by the inability of the Mode Matching Method to model any FSS geometry
and the inaccuracy the equivalent circuit method. With the advent of computers more
accurate numerical techniques were developed for the analysis of FSS such as the method
of moments (with entire or subdomain basis functions) the finite difference method and
the finite element method.
In this paper, we investigate modeling infinite periodic FSS arrays and finite FSS
structures using CST MICROWAVE STUDIO®. The full 3-D EM simulation tool is
based on the Finite Integration Technique (FIT).
The Finite Integration Technique (FIT) was first proposed by Weiland in 1976/1977
[8,9]. This numerical method provides a universal spatial discretisation scheme
applicable to various electromagnetic problems ranging from static field calculations to
high frequency applications in time or frequency domain. Unlike most numerical
methods, FIT discretises Maxwell’s equations in the integral form of rather than the
differential one. FIT generates exact algebraic analogues to Maxwell’s equations, that
guarantee physical properties of computed fields and lead to a unique solution. Maxwell's
equations and the related material equations are transformed from continuous domain
into a discrete space by allocating electric voltages on the edges of a grid G and magnetic
voltages on the edges of a dual grid G~ . The allocation of the voltage, flux components on
the grid can be seen in Figure 1. The discrete equivalent of Maxwell's equations, the so-
called Maxwell’s Grid Equations are shown in Eqs.(1)-(4). This description is still an
exact representation and does not contain any approximation errors.
) d )) ~ ) d )) ))
Ce = − b (1) Ch = d + j (2)
dt dt
)) ~ ))
Sb = 0 (3) Sd = q (4)
Figure 1: Electric voltage and flux components on a hexahedral mesh
) )
In these equations e and h denote the electric voltages between grid points and the
)) )) ))
magnetic voltages between dual grid points, respectively. The symbols d , b and j are
fluxes over grid or dual grid faces. Due to the consistent transformation analytical
properties of the fields are maintained resulting in corresponding discrete topological
~ ~
operators on the staggered grid duplet. The topology matrices C , C , S and S correspond
to the curl and the div operators. The tilde indicates that the operator belongs to the dual
grid. he discrete analogue of the coupling between voltages and fluxes is represented by
the material matrices M ε , M μ −1 and Mκ .
)) )
d = Mεe (5)
) ))
h = M μ −1 b (6)
)) ) ))
j = M κ e + jA (7)
Now all matrix equations are formulated and available to solve for any electromagnetic
field problems using the discrete grid space in the time domain. In addition to orthogonal
hexahedral grids, FIT can also be applied to more general mesh types such as
topologically irregular grids (subgrids) and tetrahedral grids, respectively. The picture
below shows the allocation of the electric voltages and magnetic fluxes on a tetrahedral
mesh cell. The application of FIT to more general meshes can be see as an extension of
the formulation described above
Prior to modeling a finite FSS structure the fundamental step in the design cycle is to
identify the resonant frequency of the unit cell. Apart from the geometry of the unit cell
element, material properties, conductor and substrate thickness the most influential
parameter that has a significant impact on the resonant frequency is the angle of
incidence of the plane wave. In MICROWAVE STUDIO® the infinite periodic array is
simulated using unit cell boundary conditions where the phase connects two opposite
boundaries with a definable phase shift such that the calculation domain is simulated to
be periodically expanded in the corresponding direction. Thus changing one boundary to
unit cell always changes the three other boundaries to define an infinite periodic array in
x and y directions. The boundaries perpendicular to the unit cell are left open and the
incident plane wave is realised using Floquet modes. As mentioned above the incident
angle (spherical angle) of the plane wave is explicitly defined by two parameters θ and φ.
Figure 3: Infinite array modeled as a unit cell. Dotted line show the unit cell area
considered for the simulation
Figure 4 shows the meshing of a unit cell using the frequency domain solver with
tetrahedral mesh. The transmission response using 2 Floquet modes per port at normal
incidence converged after 3 adaptive passes. The total run time on a 2GHz single
processor machine with a broadband frequency sweep took 23 minutes to complete with
10 frequency samples.
The transmission response of the unit cell is obtained by a broadband frequency sweep
ranging from 10 – 20 GHz. As seen in Figure 5 the resonant frequency changes with the
angle of incidence. Here the incident angle of the plane wave is changed from 0 degrees
to 40 and 70. As the angle is increased the resonant frequency becomes lower. It is a well
established fact that dipole elements are unstable with the direction of the incident plane
wave [2]. Figure 5 clearly demonstrates that a frequency shift of 1.76 GHz is apparent for
an incident angle variation of 70 degrees.
0
-5
-10
-15
Transmission Coefficient (dB)
-20
-25
-30
-35
-40
0 degree incidence
Higher order grating lobes
-45 40 degree incidence
70 degree incidence
-50
10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
Frequency (GHz)
Figure 5: TE incidence variation for a unit cell consisting of a conductive dipole array
Electric field and Surface current animations provide an insight into the resonant
behavior of the unit cell. For each simulation frequency, field monitors can be defined to
obtain parameters defined above. Figure 6 below shows an animation sequence of the
electric field plotted in the direction of propagation. Here the incident angle is 0 degrees.
At the resonant frequency (15.67 GHz) of the array the most of the energy is reflected
back to port 1, where as at 5 GHz the incident plane wave travels unperturbed to port 2.
Port 1 E Port 1 E
k k
Port 2 Port 2
Figure 6: Animation of the E field, dotted red line shows the perimeter of the unit cell
4.0 Finite Arrays – Frequency Selective Horns (FSHs)
The property of Frequency Selectivity has been extensively used many finite structures as
large radomes for military applications [10] and frequency selective waveguides [11, 12].
Here we investigate horns with frequency selectivity. In principle, they take the shape
and size of a solid conical horn for a particular frequency band, but their walls are
replaced by a FSS. Due to the ease in fabrication and the performance FSHs find many
applications where lightweight and inherent multi-band capabilities are desired. One such
application area is the design of a dual band antenna with equal beamwidths and gain.
The horns could be independently fed at the two different bands and formed by mounting
the structures coaxially. Other areas of interest include base station antennas, curved
filters and smart antennas. For fixed frequency applications, the FSH may already offer
significant advantages in terms of weight and out of band RCS, both of which should be
lower than for comparable solid horns.
FSH horns have been previously investigated using a quasi-static approach [1, 4]. In this
paper the finite structure is modeled in MICROWAVE STUDIO® and the complete
antenna performance is predicted for different element types. At the resonant frequency
the FSH performance is very close to that of a metallic solid horn of the same dimensions
and away from resonance the horn becomes inert. The wavelength of resonance λr , is
approximately twice the element length (2l ) for a dipole array and 4l for tripole and
square loop arrays, where l is the length of element. For the circular loop
λr = 2π ( Rin + 0.5w) , where Rin is the inner radius. The element width w is in most
cases much smaller than its length
Figure 7 below shows the dimensions of the horn used for the dipole array FSH. In order
to obtain symmetrical radiation patterns the elements are printed in polar periodic
arrangement. From the conical geometry, it is evident that certain design constraints
exist, especially where the periodicities of the elements are concerned.
circular
waveguide
y
0.1 mm thick substrate x
with low loss ( tanδ=0.0001) z
Dipole dimensions
l=7.7mm, w=0.35mm
polar periodicity=20.1
electric wall (Et=0)
Operational BW
Figure 11 : FSH with ring elements. (a) mesh view (b) S11
(c) Radiation patterns (d) E field animation
Conclusions
In this paper we have demonstrated that MICROWAVE STUDIO® can be used in the
frequency domain and time domain to solver FSS arrays of infinite and finite nature. Full
Floquet modal expansion and periodic boundaries was used to calculate the resonant
frequency of the unit cell. The time domain solver using the hexahedral mesh with a
finite conductor thickness was used to model the FSH. Results with dipole and ring
elements showed how a smaller horn with ring arrays give better results in terms of gain
and pattern response compared to dipole elements.
References